Congress MP Shashi Tharoor once again charmed social media with his characteristic humour and eloquence, this time through a playful Instagram video dissecting the quirks and contradictions of the English language. The clip, which has already crossed more than one million views, shows Tharoor responding to a quirky email he received about the logic behind English spellings.
Tharoor breaks down English oddities
In the video, Tharoor begins by quoting the message sent to him. He says, “Hi!, just received a funny email saying, I’d like to know why, When from 20 upto 90 ends in ‘ty’, why only 10 is written as ten and why not ‘tenty’. 2.) When from 13 upto 19 ends in ‘teen’ why not 11 and 12 is written as ‘eleventeen’ and ‘twelveteen’.? Fairly good question, but there’s only one simple answer. English is a completely irrational language.”
He continues by stressing that English spellings and pronunciations often defy logic. “Just check out English spellings and pronunciations. I want to share with you one of my favourite poems about this,” he adds before reciting a humorous verse highlighting the confusions created by O U G H words. He recites, “I take it you already know of tough and bough and cough and dough. Others may stumble, but not you, on hiccup, thorough, rough, and through. See, they’re all spelt ending in O U G H.”
Tharoor goes on to quote further lines illustrating the tricky mismatches between spelling and sound. “Beware of herd, a dreadful word that looks like beard and sounds like bird. And dead, it’s said like bed, not bead. For goodness sake, don’t call it deed,” he says, continuing through amusing comparisons involving meat, greet, threat, dose, rose, lose, goose, choose, cork, work, card, ward and many others.
After finishing the poem, he remarks, “A dreadful language, man alive. I mastered it when I was five. The point is completely irrational. Just learn it, get used to it, have fun with it. Take care.”
Take a look here at the clip:
Social media reacts with amusement
The caption shared with the video read, “Who needs logic when you have English to keep you perpetually perplexed?” This playful tone resonated with users who filled the comments section with laughter and admiration.
One user commented that “the poem alone proves English survives purely on chaos.” Another wrote that “only Tharoor sir can make linguistic confusion sound poetic.” A third remarked that “this is exactly why English gives students nightmares every year.”
Another viewer said that “the explanation was so entertaining I forgot I was being educated,” while another joked that “after this, I am fully convinced English was invented to confuse us permanently.”
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